


263 - Teenage Van Angst

by storiesaboutvan



Category: Catfish and the Bottlemen (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Teenage Van
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 14:44:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14239542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesaboutvan/pseuds/storiesaboutvan
Summary: Filling the prompts “teenage van and like being close to him but the reader and van start drifting away after he drops out and the reader starts dating and like angsty and jealous van? But a good ending?” and “a sad and emotional Van went to a club and he is trying to text ‘y/n’ but he has to go to the door to get signal as all his texts are just pending but some get through, none of em make sense but she comes to get him but they end up taking a walk to sober him up and they go to an all night chicken shop and have a deep chat or something?”Mini requests of fucking up year 12/senior year exams and an ongoing joke about the reader hating Catfish but Van walks in on her singing Pacifier.





	263 - Teenage Van Angst

They seemed to be having a hard time keeping the actual food in their mouths. You wished you could have said it was because of the alcohol coursing through their teenage bodies, making their senses and coordination blunt and damaged. Alas, no. They tended to eat like that sober too. Regardless, you loved them - your little band of fuzzy haired dreamers.

“Open,” Van said as he twitched his head around to try to get his hair out of his eyes. Before the others got to his, he’d requested that you straightened his fringe. “Wanna look like a proper rock star,” he’d said. A pinky swear that you would never tell the guys that it took an hour to get Van looking frontman ready and a cup of tea later, you were helping pile equipment into Bernie’s car.

You opened your mouth and tried to correct the bad angle Van had thrown the chip at. It hit your cheek and bounced to the floor.

“Again,” you demanded.

His second throw was better and you caught it right on your tongue. The guys all cheered, drawing passive-aggressive attention from the late night fish and chip shop attendants. Van winked at you because he always had to do something a little extra when it came to you. He always had to prove that he was your favourite and you were his. All the other guys had stopped caring long ago. Maybe it would have been different if you had moved to the school when you were sixteen, but growing up with them all, knowing Van, Larry, and Benji from before any of you realised there were contrasts between any of you, made those weird ‘girl that is friends with boys’ tropes non-existent. You were sleeping on top of each other and sharing clothes before your body started to look different. You were all equal and the same from the get-go. But, to Van, you weren’t the same. You were special and disparate and he was utterly enamoured with you.

Of course, you didn’t know that. You put all his extra attention down to a) his innate need for attention and b) the fact that you were best at keeping his secrets. You didn’t know that Van pined for you at his dinner table. You hadn’t heard Bernie tell Van that he probably should never tell you that he loved you for the reason that, as he put it, “She’s like a best mate, but dead pretty, you know?” Van thought it was a compliment. His parents shook their heads at him.

“Do me,” Larry said. A few of the guys around the table snorted. You rolled your eyes. Van threw a chip at Larry and it flew through the air like it was destined to end in Larry’s mouth.

“That was a fuckin’ fluke,” one of the new guys that the core quartet had adopted throughout the night said.

In true Van and Larry style, they both raised one eyebrow each and started a quickfire round. Ten chips left Van’s drunk hands and landed perfectly in Larry’s drunk mouth. There was a telepathic connection between those two. They were proper soul mates.

When the huge pile of chips was consumed and little food babies were being patted lovingly, people started to splinter off back into the night-time. First, the two new guys that hadn’t introduced themselves well enough for you to recall their names. Then, Benji and the girl he’d been seeing for a bit. You were jealous of her glittery makeup and how her dark skin always looked so soft. That left you, Larry, and Van 

“Laz, mate. You right?” Van asked him. Larry’s head rolled around unnaturally. The chips hadn’t really sobered him up, which made his earlier chip-catching victory all the more impressive. “We’ll walk you home, yeah?”

Once Larry was in his front yard, you left him to figure out the rest. No way were you and Van going to be caught by Parents Lau and have to explain why he was home well and truly after his midnight curfew.

“Next stop,” Van said, wrapping his arm around your shoulders and walking as close to you as humanly possible. You nodded

The air was almost freezing; the mist hung down low, hovering just above the cracked sidewalk. With you already wearing his dark denim jacket, Van couldn’t help to warm you anymore. There was residual booze in your blood and happiness in your bones though. You were fine.

You were only just-seventeen but had already begun to learn about the nature of humans. Everyone wore different faces. Some people had many, like each person they met required a different version of themselves in response. Some people had few, people like Van. Van was almost entirely the same regardless of who he was around and what the context was. He hardly changed from classroom to dinner table to stage. He changed when it was just you and him though.

When there were limited other distractions, like when it was just cold night and walks home, he was calm. He moved slower, more calculated. You suspected he even thought before he spoke, which was entirely rare for Van McCann.

You liked him like that. He put you at ease. Of all the places you felt most you, alone with him was arguably the best. Although, when your family asked why you loved the guys so much, why you hardly had bothered to make friends with anyone else, why you spoke of Van and his dream of making it big like it was written in stone, you couldn’t really give them an answer. “I don’t know… I just… I just love them,” you’d say with a shrug. If something is so effortlessly good, why bother analysing it just for the sake of explanation?

Van followed you down the side of your house. He pushed your bedroom window open and lowered himself to the ground in order to boost you up. From inside your room, you leant out the window to plant a kiss on his forehead. It was what you always did when he returned you home. Van would grab hold of the window frame and pull himself up, using the last of his energy. You’d press your lips to his forehead, he’d fall to the ground, and you’d watch him stagger back onto the street and find home at last.

…

“You’re meant to be our biggest supporter!” Benji whined. He was standing on the little stage you had collaboratively made in his parents’ back shed. Old shipping pallets and pieces of discarded timber were put together like a jigsaw until there was something that could support the weight of the guys and all their songs. Benji looked small behind his long bass and under his big hair.

“No, that’s Larry,” you corrected.

From the couch next to you, the one you got your older brother to deliver on the back of his ute when he was buying a new one for his flat, Larry nodded.

“What’s your job then?” Benji asked.

“Tell you when you’re a bit shit,”

“And you think this is a bit shit? Van - aren’t you offended?”

Everyone in the shed looked at Van. He was leaning on his mic stand, picking at the tape that held it together. He shrugged.

“Nah. This is the best song I’ve ever written,” he said casually. You couldn’t work out if he wasn’t interested in participating in the banter or if he didn’t understand the joke. 

“What does it even mean though? How can you be someone’s pacifier?” you asked him in a sarcastic voice.

“Y/N, I’ll start takin’ writing advice from you when you start to pass English class, yeah?” Van quipped back. The guys all cackled.

To be fair, you were only failing English because you hardly went to class. It was on at the same time Van and Larry has a study period, which meant you always joined them in the student carpark for a smoke.

“She probably will now though. No more distractions and all that,” Larry added.

“What do you mean?” you asked quickly, turning to look at him so fast that you didn’t catch Van standing up straight and shaking his head at Larry. It was too late for that though.

“Ahhh…”

You looked around the room. Everyone was doing their best to avoid eye contact with you.

“What does that mean?” you repeated, your body refusing to stay casual. You sat on the very edge of the seat and willed yourself to not stand up dramatically.

“You said you’d tell her before now,” Benji whispered at Van like you couldn’t hear it.

“Tell me what?”

Van was chewing his lip and looking at his feet. He took a breath out then looked up at you.

“I’m d-I mean, we’re dropping out of school… We’re gonna try to make it proper, you know?”

Everybody was silent and still as they waited for your reaction. It was the very first time a group decision had been made without you. They hadn’t even ordered pizza until you got there up until that point. Dropping out of high school and leaving you behind seemed like a huge fucking step up from that.

Your mind started to play little movies of the future for you. It showed you what class would be like without them. Walking home without them. Exam week without them. Everything without them. Without him.

Too young to be any good at identifying complex emotions, you froze, unable to feel much at all. What you did know though, was when the feeling arrived, it would be one hell of a heartache.

“I'm…” you started to say without thinking it through. “…gonna go home, I think.”

As soon as you went to stand and leave, Van moved from behind the mic to take hold of you by the hands. His fingers laced through yours and he held on tight. Still too stunned to do anything, you stared past him vacantly and just waited for him to start and finish whatever it was he was going to do.

“Y/N… It’s not gonna change anything. We’re all still gonna be best friends and do everything together. You can’t get rid of us that easy, you know?” His voice was unconvincing. The grip he had on your hands said more than his words.

“I told you she’d freak out,” you heard Larry say from behind you. “Y/N, we ain’t fuckin’… breaking up with ya. It’s alright; calm down.”

Anyone that has ever been hurt or angry knows that being told to 'calm down’ is the trigger for the polar opposite. Van heard your sharp intake of breath and as he looked back at you from Larry, he hissed at him, “Shut the fuck up.”

Holding your breath was starting to hurt, so you pulled your hands away from Van and pushed past him. As soon as the sunlight was drenching your skin, you ran fast.

…

Two nights later, you were lying on your bed listening to Mike Skinner’s voice when there was a soft knock on your bedroom door. Without thinking, you called, “Yeah?” Your family was under strict instruction not to let any of the guys in the house. When they called you refused to speak. There was no reason for you to think Van would be the one poking his head into your room with great hesitation and equally great softness.

You looked up from where you were snuggled under blankets. Van had seen you at your worst. That was inevitable in a friendship that started young and lasted long. Still, you had a moment where you worried about how puffy your eyes were and if there was any snot visible in your nose. Any evidence of crying was bad, you thought, even though you didn’t know why you thought that.

When you had got home from the afternoon in the shed, you went straight to your room and slammed the door. You cried yourself to sleep, woke up at 10 pm, ate some toast, and went back to sleep. The next day, Monday, you were left to sleep in. When you got out of bed nobody was home. A note on the kitchen table said 'Will talk tonight. Leftover dinner in fridge. xo M & D’ You spent the day eating and crying more. Every few hours, you’d stop to try to work out why you were so upset. Was it that you felt left out of a big decision? Was it that you were going to be left behind? Or, was is just that you’d miss them all too much to bear? Monday night you told your family what was happening and begged to not have to go to school Tuesday. “It’s near the end of the semester, Y/N. You’ll have exams soon,” your mother said. But, they’d never seen you like that. Tuesday morning you woke up at 10.39 am to an empty house.

“Go away,” you mumbled in Van’s general direction as he let himself in your room, closing the door behind him.

“Your mum called my mum,” he said in response. “Your mum reckons she ain’t got a chance in hell in getting you to go back to school…” He took a step closer to the bed. You shot a warning look up at him that made him smirk. You weren’t a threat to Van, even if you wanted to be. “You have to though,”

“Why?”

“Because. You’re dead smart and we don’t want you to throw ya life away jus’ 'cause you grew up with a bunch of idiots. Just 'cause we jump off a cliff don’t mean you’ve got to too. You’re smarter than that,” Van said. His sentences featured 'we’ too many times to have any real impact on you. They came out of him so carefully. 'We’ implied the guys sat around talking about you. Regardless of if they talked shit or talked praise, you hated it. You hated that they had put you in a category separate to them. It went unsaid, but you were willing to bet on the fact that it was because you were a girl and they were all boys.

“I hate you for doing this,” you whispered. Tears started to roll down your face and Van looked like he was going to cry too. He knelt on the floor next to your bed and put his arms on the mattress. He reached out for you but you refused to reach back. “Fuck you,”

“You don’t mean that. You know how much this means to me. You know why we’ve gotta do this-”

“Don’t! Can you, like, just stop for one second!” you said, voice no longer a whisper. You sat up and shook free from the blankets. “Stop talking like you’re the fucking president of everyone. They can speak for themselves and if they’re sorry they can come and say that. You’re not the fucking boss of everyone. And don’t tell me what I should do with my life. Larry’s just as smart as me and I bet you’re letting him drop out too. There isn’t any good reason for me not to come wherever you guys go. So just say that you don’t want a girl there because it will ruin your whole rockstar thing and fuck off.”

Never have I ever been bitingly cruel to my best friend, Van McCann, just to hurt him as much as he hurt me. Drink.

Van watched you. He took the anger with grace. When you were finished, he stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets. Glancing over at the CD player on your desk, he smiled to himself. Looking back at you, his smile faded.

“Y/N. I don’t- I don’t even know what you want me to say. I would never do anything to hurt you. You don’t even know how much I… You’re my best friend. You get me. You’re meant to get me, you know? I thought Mum and Dad would be the ones to yell at me and make me feel like shit about this… not you. I’m real sorry that you're… that you’re sad or whatever. I didn’t think you would be. Everyone said you’d be so pissed off and I kept saying that even though you pretend to hate our songs and stuff, that you’re the one that really thinks we can make it, you know? The only reason that I waited to tell you was 'cause when I think about it, I get a bit down 'bout not seeing you at school every day. I’ll miss you 'cause you’re my best friend and I love you. I didn’t mean for you to be hurt and I’m sorry, but what you just said was really fuckin’ shitty, Y/N. And, uh, yeah… I’m just gonna go. I’m sorry I made it worse.”

When you were sure he was out of your house, you broke down. Never prone to dramatics, you scared your entire family when you were inconsolably hysterical. As you sobbed so much you almost threw up, Van sat under your window outside. He grew colder by the minute, the grass under him damp from the afternoon drizzle. Nothing was as it should’ve been.

…

Life resumed. Naturally, you resented and hated it. Nobody could really pinpoint if it was the grief of losing them as friends or your spitefulness at being forced back to school, but you were barely passing your classes. A part of you deeply, deeply cared. Sitting at your desk, you’d look at the list of homework and assignments to be done, and wish a million times over you could summon the motivation to just get it fucking done. But you didn’t. The other part of you just kept saying that you would never have a normal life. If Van and Larry and Benji and the others - the others that had come and gone and been replaced in your absence - were destined for something, you were too.

When a month and two days had elapsed since the bedroom breakdown, you were wide awake on the eve of your final exam. The ones that preceded it were painful but bearable. You only needed to pass them to pass the classes. The last one though, you needed to do well to pass the class. It was almost midnight on a Thursday when you checked the time.

You needed a study buddy. There had been plenty of opportunities to find one; apparently, you were more approachable without the guys. People in your year had tried to make friends with you, but you were stubborn and kept yourself in pain for the sake of it. Usually when you needed help studying, you’d have Benji come over. A Ravenclaw, he was good at studying even if he didn’t know the content.

The message thread in your phone reminded you of just how long ago it was since you last spoke to him. You missed him. You missed them all so, so much. It was still impossible to think about them without bursting into tears.

Each letter took energy to type, like your fingers were weighed down with lead. 'You up?’ you messaged him.

What you expected was a text the day after. Benji’s tactic for avoiding things was to just acknowledge them when it no longer mattered. Instead, almost instantly, your phone was vibrating and a really horrible selfie he’d taken was on the screen. On the best of days phone calls were the worst…

“Hey,” you answered softly.

“Hey. What’s up? Are you okay?” he asked hurriedly. You could hear music in the background, but no other voices.

“Oh, yeah, no, sorry. I’m okay. Nothing’s wrong,” you replied. Why else would you call out of the blue if it weren’t an emergency?

“Okay. Uh… What’s up?”

“Um, I know… I know this is really weird to do now but… My last exam is tomorrow and if I fail it I’m absolutely fucked. I probably won’t sleep even if I take those pills we stole from Larry’s mum. So… um, are you busy?”

There was a strange muffled sound on the other end of the line. It lasted only a couple of seconds before Benji’s voice was back and saying, “I’ll be over in like, twenty minutes.”

Half an hour later, there was a knock on your window. You pushed it open and smiled at Benji. Almost crying, you stepped back to let him climb into your room. Then, you saw the movement behind him. Another figure. It didn’t matter how much practice he had, Van always made climbing through your window look as awkward as possible.

The boys stood side by side in your bedroom, already appearing different to how you remembered them. Before they could say anything, before you could, you started to cry.

“Love,” Van whispered on a breath out as he pulled you into him. You held on for dear fucking life. “Up,” he ordered. You jumped and wrapped your legs around him, and as he moved to sit on the bed, you curled around him.

“Oh, hi, Matthew Benjamin Blakeway. Haven’t seen you in a bit. I love you too,” Benji said as he pushed through the notes and textbooks on your desk. You were far too busy inhaling the smell of Van to care.

By the time they climbed out the window at 3 am, you felt put back together. Regardless of emotional state and friendships restored, you had a sinking feeling, a suspicion you were still utterly fucked for the exam.

…

The realisation came far too late to be of any use. It would have been better to have lost Van and the others in one big fight, in one big go. Yes, it hurt. Yes, it almost killed you. Unfortunately, yes, it was all very Bella spinning around in a chair for three months while indie music played blah blah Twilight. But, you could have come back from that.

After exams were done you thought you’d see the guys more. Not so. They spent all their time driving off to weird little towns to play tiny shows. You never asked to go because you never wanted to hurt of being told there was only so much space in Bernie’s car with all the new equipment. When they were back in town, they were chasing up producer leads and writing music and hardly giving themselves a chance to breathe. They were working so Goddamn hard that it seemed impossible for them not to make it at that point. So, in your eighteenth year of life, you learnt the meaning of the word 'bittersweet.' 

The guys were on track and more than happy. When you did manage to pin them down for drinks, they updated you about all things Catfish and the Bottlemen. You were genuinely happy for them. For you, not so much. You missed them. Growing apart from them was worse than just having them gone. Ultimately, it pushed you in the direction of other people. For the first time in your life, you craved attention and anything social. When you found yourself striking up conversations with the coffee girl, the library girl, and a boy on a bus, you knew you had to do something.

Growing up sneaking into bars and hanging around people older than you had resulted in you feeling comfortable talking to strangers and coming across as… cool. The actuality of that was debatable according to the guys and your family, but nobody could debate that people were drawn to you.

The day you received your exam and class results was the night you first went out to town alone.

It became habit.

“Should we be jealous, Y/N? Replaced us?” Larry asked when you saw them.

The guys were teasing, saying it was hard to reach you anymore. Messages went unanswered. Shows went unattended. They joked, saying you were still angry at them. None of them had asked how the exam results went, so maybe you were. They had all dropped out and left you behind, so maybe you were. Or maybe you were just moving on and living your own life, separate to them. Whatever way, you laughed along and felt glad to catch up with them.

When Van disappeared out the front, you followed a minute later. He was leaning against the wall, looking more grown up than you’d ever seen him. Van had a child-like happiness, so whenever he was brooding and moody, it aged him. You stood next to him and knocked your shoulder against his side.

“You alright?” you asked him.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yep. Well, I’m not sulking off alone, so I’m fine,” you replied, looking at him.

“I ain’t sulking, Y/N.” Van took a deep drag then flicked his half-finished cigarette into the gutter. “You got a mate in there?” he asked suddenly, watching your reaction carefully.

“What do you mean?”

“Saw you when we were coming in. At the bar,”

“Oh, yeah,” you replied. “He’s friends with some of my other friends. He was leaving when I got here… Why?”

Van shrugged. He had always been a horrible liar. The jealousy was written all over his face. “Just wonderin’ how you knew 'im,”

“Someone’s gotta keep me company when you’re not around, McCann,” you joked.

At least he tried to smile, but it was still clear Van wasn’t going to let go of his bad mood.

…

“It’s not the end of the world, Y/N. There’s lots of different ways of getting to where you want to go. Nobody’s disappointed, honey,” your mum said. Whenever anyone asked why you were sad or angry or moody or anything bad, you always just went with the 'I fucked up my exams’ excuse. It was the easiest and safest thing to say.

“Also,” your dad added as he looked for something in the fridge. Your mum started to swat at him because it was almost dinnertime. “Why don’t you just call Van? If you’re missin’ him, can’t imagine what the boy is feeling.”

Your parents were too busy play fighting to notice you slip from the room.

…

“Weird how all of our rooms seem too small for us now,” Van said.

He’d kicked his boots off and lounged out on your bed. He was right. It hadn’t been long since high school, yet you all seemed so different. The pale pink bedspread beneath him looked childish. It was almost disturbing.

Van held his arms out and wriggled his fingers. It was one of your favourite things he did. He did it to anyone he wanted a hug from - girl, boy, parent, stranger. It was such a genuinely loving thing. Van was a genuinely loving thing. When apart, you cursed him and all his choices. You lived your life not despite him but in spite of him. But back together, you melted into the happy sixteen-year-old you used to be.

“I know. Guess our parents are gonna start kicking us out,”

“Money’s on Larry’s first,” Van laughed.

“Same. He’ll come live with you, right?”

“Already got our new guitarist living at the B&B. Don’t know what we’ll do. Was thinking of moving out, but figure we tour so much there ain’t much point in getting a place, you know what I mean?”

“You could… like… buy a place. Let me live there for free. I can water the plants and walk Little Mary when you’re gone,” you suggested very helpfully.

“Never would’ve guessed you’d wanna live with us,”

“Remember we used to talk about it when we were really little? We had that tree house and we totally thought we could live in it forever,” you said.

“Yeah, but we’re not little anymore. You got your fancy friends. Only call us when someone’s wrong. You don’t wanna live with us.”

Sensing the shifting mood, you sat up. Van followed, leaning against your headboard and pulling his legs up closer to his chest. You sat cross-legged in front of him.

“Van…”

“Your mum told mine ages ago, love. 'Bout your exams. I didn’t know when you found out and mum told me before I got a chance to ask ya. Didn’t wanna stress you out so I didn’t say anything. Kinda figured this is… this is now. You tellin’ me now so I can make you feel all better again. 'Cause that’s how it works, right?” There was a chord of discontent in Van’s tone, but it was weirdly unaccusatory. He wasn’t angry.

There were a million questions. Why was Van being like this? Why couldn’t he just enjoy your company anymore? What had you done to make him so resentful? What had he done to make you the same? Was it always going to be like that? How could you fix it? Could it even be saved? Why was it different with Van than the others?

“I… I know. Okay? I know that everything… nothing’s been the same since… but you’re right, okay? Happy? But I need you to just… I need your help, Van. Can you stop being… I just…” You didn’t know you were crying. “I don’t know… I…”

Van’s arms were around you before you tried for another failed sentence. He was pulling you into him with a crushing force. And fuck, did it feel like home.

“Also can I just say,” he whispered into your hair. “I totally heard you singing to Pacifier just before.”

…

It happened again. Because it was just going to keep happening. You’d see them all, you’d see Van, and for a moment entertain the irrational notion that maybe things could be okay. Then they’d take another step towards the dream. A talent scout would be at a show. NME would mention them on Twitter. Something. You’d fall out of touch, nobody really to blame, and after a couple of months, you’d find each other again. It happened again and again, and it would have kept happening too. If something hadn’t changed everything again.

You were at a gig in a bar and the vibe was strange. When the band finished, LED laser lights started to dart around the room. Music played through speakers and half the songs were in the pop charts. Drinks got pinker. Shoes got higher. You were basically in a club and honestly, you weren’t hating it. You swallowed as many shots as you could in one round and spun around and around and around. There were a lot of people out that you knew, so there were familiar faces every way you turned.

Someone leaned on you for support. She was trying to make a call but the reception inside was patchy at best. Her pupils were expanding as fast as her words were coming out. Absolutely pinging, she kept laughing and jumping out of sync with the music and out of sync with the rest of the world. “Have to go by the door or somethin’,” she slurred out and stumbled off to send a message.

The room was spinning but you told yourself you were okay. Yeah, you were okay. Unsure if you should trust someone flying high, you got your own phone out. There were messages. Five seemingly unrelated messages all from Van sat unopened.

12:07 am 'U out 2nite? we in town’

12:33 am 'just me’

12: 51 am 'u @ tha fuckin place u like?’

1:04 am 'thought I did’

1:17 am 'fuck this. Goin home.’

It was 1.20 am when you read the messages and immediately you began to look around the room, looking for Van, hoping against all hope “tha fuckin place u like” was exactly where you were and exactly where he was. Suddenly, your drunk body ached for his hugs. Your ears screamed out for his voice. The rest of your body had opinions too, but you stopped listening to them. You’d spent your life blocking that out in case it ruined the friendship. As it stood, the friendship couldn’t take much more trouble.

Making your way to the door, you were deafened by the sounds of people yelling at each other, trying to have their voices heard over the music. The music was being turned up and up in slow increments. The lights were blinding and even the air felt less breathable than it should have.

Outside was paradise. Cold, clean air. Darkness with only muted streetlights in the distance to guide movement. Familiar sounds of smokers’ chatter and traffic on the next street over. On the corner of the block, there was someone leaning against a letterbox. They looked like they were struggling. As you went to move in their direction, you found your feet were heavy. It took a while to get them.

Black denim jacket. Black jeans, ripped at the knees. Really ripped. Not fashionable ripped, 'I’m wearing these until they fall off my body’ ripped. Black boots. Scuffed. The left boot was taped with silver duct tape, coloured in black. It barely matched. Dark brown hair that looked almost black in the night-time. It was curled around their head in a shape not unlike a mushroom.

“Van?”

His head rolled to face you but didn’t lift off the letterbox. His eyes opened; his eyelashes were clumped together and his eyes were bloodshot. Van went to speak, but instead, the sound in the air was your phone receiving a message. Two. Three. Four. More.

“Tha’ me. Tha’s prob… me,” he whispered.

It was hard to tear your eyes away from him, but you did. He was right. All the messages that existed between the five you read in the bar. They filled in the story’s gap. It all made sense.

Looking back up at him, you wanted to ask if he was alright, but you weren’t sure you were the least fucked up in the situation. So, instead of talking, you joined him at the letterbox, leaning against it and holding it with one arm. With the other, the one next to Van, you pulled his arm off the letterbox and tangled your fingers in his. It was a group hug.

For a moment, maybe it was a couple of seconds, maybe it was half an hour, you just watched each other. Both drunk. Both not okay. Both unsure how to make things okay again.

“Chips?” you eventually asked.

Van nodded, stood slowly, steadied himself, then held a hand out.

The walk to the late night fish and chip shop was made longer by the fact that you walked all the way to the one that was basically a second home; you’d been going there all your life. The walk was quiet, save for the sounds of the city and your own internal monologues.

At the counter of the shop, the old man said, “Haven’t seen you lot in a while. Thought maybe you got outta this place,” when you thought you had always been just another motley crew of kids.

“Not yet,” Van piped up. “Will though. Almost there.” The slurring speech was exactly proof of much but the old man smiled and nodded.

“Sure, kid. I’ll get ya chips on. Take a seat.”

The chips were better than you remembered. As soon as you thought it, you kicked yourself for acting so disproportionally removed from yourself and your past. The last time you were there was just over a year ago at most. Regardless of how time moved in reality, it felt like longer. Everything had changed in the two years prior. It had changed so dramatically and so fast that you never really caught up. It was like constant experiential whiplash.

“You hav'ta stay with me now, Y/N,” Van said when he couldn’t consume any more chips. You were nowhere near done. Potato was your thing, and you also ate far more slowly than Van. He picked up chips and started to feed them to you. Under any other circumstance, there was no fucking way you’d let a boy feed you food. But, your head was heavy and it felt good to not have to put the work in. Besides… Van was always the exception. Always.

“Stay where?”

“Everywhere. Can’t keep doin’ this. You need to be with me,”

“Reckon? The guys still want me 'round?” you asked before opening your mouth for more salty, salty potato.

“Don’t care. S'not 'bout them. 'Bout us. You don’t need to be 'round them. Just me. Need you with me now. Okay?”

All the emotion you could never read in Van became suddenly so obvious. He was exhausted. It wasn’t misery or rage or resentment, not really. He was completely and utterly exhausted from trying to pretend to not feel so much about you. Seeing it in him was familiar. You saw that look on your own face every day.

“I’m in love with you,” you whispered. “And you left me behind,”

“No more cryin’,” Van replied quickly, reaching out to your face to wipe the quiet tears away. “Already put salt on the chips,” he added, feeding you another. “An’ I know I did. I fuckin’ know I did. Been eatin’ me up. I fucked up. So, so bad an’ I didn’t know how to fix it. But I’m fixin’ it, 'cause I’m here and I’m just so fuckin’ obsessed with you. I’ve loved ya my whole fuckin’ life, Y/N. I know, I know I left but I’m not leavin’ again. I love you.”

And he fed you another chip.


End file.
